Dead Poet’s Variety

The Selected Levis: Revised Edition

Edited by David St. John

University of…

The Selected Levis: Revised Edition

Edited by David St. John

University of Pittsburgh Press

“So Death blows his little f—ing trumpet, Big Deal, says the boy.”

The sudden death of poet Larry Levis in 1996 was a huge loss for American poetry. Levis, who published his first book of poems, “Wrecking Crew,” with the University of Pittsburgh Press, went on to write five more award-winning collections. In 2000, the Pitt Poetry Series, edited by Ed Ochester, published a collection that featured poems from his first five books. The revised edition of this book, “The Selected Levis,” includes 12 poems from Levis’ last book, “Elegy,” which was published posthumously in 1997.

Greg Johnson called the work “some of the most remarkable in late 20th century poetry.” Indeed, Levis’ poignant words have certainly moved many, and his death inspired several tribute poems. One, written by Pittsburgh native Gerald Stern, says, “Knowing how wise he would have been with the parking lot/ and the tree that refused against all odds and all.”

Editor David St. John was born in Levis’ hometown of Fresno, Calif., where Levis’ family owned a farm. Much of Levis’ poetry alludes to this time in his life and his words breathe life into the workers that surrounded him in his youth. “Peasants or factory workers starring off at something/ you couldn’t see, something beyond them.”

He addresses his own adolescence, “And the girls I tried to talk to after class/ Sailed by, then each night lay enthroned in my bed,/ With nothing on but the jewels of their embarrassment./ Eyes, lips, dreams. No one. The sky and the road.”

The poems jump at the reader, bombarding the senses with intriguing narrative and images that resonate for days. “I have stood for a long time/ in its shadow, the way I stood/ in the shadow of a dead roommate/ I had to cut down from the ceiling/ on Easter break, when/ I was young.”

The collection is a rare opportunity to experience the evolution of a poet – his lifetime of words exist as a single unit. There is a deliberate continuity at work, as John attempts to recreate the essence of each of Levis’ books through carefully chosen excerpts. It is difficult to identify the poet in all of these words, to pin down the man. But the journey he takes us on is stunning. “And the mirror is calm, and reflects nothing.”

Levis the poet lives on in the reading of his work. His legacy is lasting – and the Missouri Review that he helped to establish honors him each year with the Larry Levis Prize in Poetry. In his short career he earned three fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He taught at several universities, including Virginia Commonwealth University, where he was a professor at the time of his death. He accomplished much in his 49 years, and this latest book is a testament to that.